Garden Happenings

The gardening is growing so fast these pictures I took just a few days ago are already outdated! Every time I walk out to the garden I feel like the plants have doubled again in size! You can’t see them in this picture, but we also have our tomatoes coming along nicely now and staked up.

Last week we harvested all that was left of our cauliflower, as it was all ready at once.

This was the biggest head.

My biggest basket was full. We stored all but one in the fridge, and that one got included in supper –

A rather delicious stir-fry.

Romaine Lettuce and Dill growing together. We’ve gotten so many salads off our 3 varieties of lettuce we have planted. The kids like to go out and snack on lettuce, and on occasion have nearly killed a few of the plants by eating off too many leaves!

Speaking of, they also nearly destroyed the poor basil plants (in the right hand pot) last week. I asked them to go out and pick A FEW basil leaves for seasoning the dish I was making. When I checked on them, both plants had no leaves, and Alan was holding one uprooted plant in his hand. Thankfully we were able to replant quickly and they both seem to be recovering. The other sad plants in the chips are eggplants. The flea beetles are really hindering their growth, but I’m hoping once they get their roots established enough they will be able to produce anyway. (that’s what happened last year, so…)

I planted a few Sweet Meat Squash seeds in egg cartons that recently got transplanted out to an empty place in the garden. Hoping they do well.

This is our Swiss Chard, also seedlings of Okra beginning to get a few leaves.

And this – this is our Kale patch. Before I harvested 5 stuffed gallon bags for the freezer.

And this is the Kale patch afterwards…though its already growing back so fast.

Recently we added potatoes.  This method may look a little strange, but works very well. First you lay down newspaper (or in our case, ripped apart feedsacks) and space the cut up seed potatoes over the top. Then thickly cover it all with hay. We actually covered ours with fresh grass cut with Jordan’s scythe, and it dried out very quickly.

After a few weeks the potato sprouts begin to push up through the hay, then before long it looks like this:

When we get ready to harvest potatoes in the fall, we just push aside the straw and pick them up!

I’ll leave you with this picture of collard greens and fresh eggs that were in the process of migrating into the house.

I’m sure I’ll have more thrilling garden news for you soon!